Jealous
by DCFanatic4life
Summary: Chris needs to tell someone something, but it's not going to be easy...but nothing ever is easy is it?


Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or real people portrayed in this story. Their characters belong to Vince McMahon and WWE and the real life people belong to themselves. 

Based on the song "Jealous Guy" belongs to whoever owns John Lennon's songs.

**To read the original version with song lyrics go to: bitter-solemnity. com /fics /Onepart /Jealous.php (just get rid of the spaces).**

A/N: I don't know where this came from, but here it is. I don't even know what's going on. Well, I do, but, eh, just read it, it's just something to tide over the muses. I like it though, so I hope you do.

And if you want to be brutal, that's fine, just be brutal in detail so I know what went wrong. ;)

It probably worked out for the best. Trish leaving me was probably a good thing. I can see that now, because it's exactly what she tried to do to me. This was the Hunter thing all over again. I don't get why we try to hurt each other, but it seems that it's just in our nature to do so. That's why Trish leaving me was good, because she deserved better than some guy who wanted another woman. I don't get why we're constantly trying to one up each other.

I can still remember how I reacted when she was with Hunter. I couldn't believe how terrible it made me feel. She was such a bitch about the whole thing, but God help me, I thought she was beautiful. She gave me a little smirk, telling me that she wanted to stay married to Hunter, that he was "good" for her. I wanted to tear him apart just for that.

I still hurt when I think about her being married to him. Two weeks later, they were separated, but hell if I knew that. She kept up the charade, just to get under my skin. It's an art she's perfected, getting under my skin. She's so far deep now that she's in my blood. I eat, sleep, and breathe Stephanie McMahon and she knows it. That's what kills me, she knows it and she uses it to my disadvantage.

So here we are now. Again during one of our off periods, and I thought that I could actually get with Trish. Yeah, what a pipe dream that was. She wants Christian, and you know, that's fine, because Stephanie is still that woman I want. I haven't talked to her in God knows how long, but she still has me wrapped around her little finger. So here I am, at her doorstep, ready to say let's give it one more try, just because. I guess I'm really her bitch.

Except that she's under my control as well. It's really just kind of odd that way. We both have such power over the other, and yet we still don't do anything about it. We just keep tugging back and forth, the ball bouncing from court to court with neither of us gaining an advantage. This time the ball is in my court with the entire Trish incident. I know that Stephanie was watching, and she was probably jealous out of her mind watching the whole thing. And that's exactly how I wanted it.

I rang her doorbell. I expected her to open the door and give me that look of hers. It would border on annoyance, tempered with a gladness to see me. I had been by to see her numerous times in the past year and a half since I left her show. Left her show, there was another assertion of my power, trying to gain the upper-hand. In true Stephanie fashion, she ignored my leaving, pretending like I never existed and she snatched the upper-hand right back. But yes, I've visited her, and it's always ended up in that stupid tug-of-war where we both try to outwit each other. But I haven't talked to her since the Trish thing, so I don't know how this time will go. The ball is in my court though, and I know it, and most importantly, I know that she knows it.

She answers the door and I can tell she's happy to see me. I love her, I won't admit it, not to her at least, and I never will, but I do. I almost lose my nerve as I look at her, but she's worth looking like a fool for, if only for a minute. Her look changes from happiness to that familiar look of annoyance and it's only a matter of seconds before she opens her mouth and says the words she always says when I come to her door.

"Groveling again?" There they are and I smirk.

"Do I need to?"

"So after the whole fiasco with Trish, you come running back to me, is that it?" she asks. I nod vigorously, giving her a child-like grin. She looks me over and shakes her head, "So what am I? Sloppy seconds?"

I laugh, "Yeah Stephanie, you're sloppy seconds, except you know what place you have in my life."

"What place is that? The garbage you never want to throw out because you feel bad for it?"

"Oh give it up," I say, and I can feel an argument coming on. I can feel it just about to erupt between us. Except this time, I didn't want to erupt with her. I didn't want to end up on the floor having sex with her just because we built up all our anger and tension and we had to let it loose. It had happened too many times before, I wasn't going to lose control of myself this time.

"Stephanie, I just want to come in and talk to you," I tell her honestly.

She looks at me suspiciously, as if deciding whether or not she should trust my honesty. She has every right to distrust me, because there's not really a lot of trust between us. I do want to change that, but I don't know if I can, because there's so much hurt and mistrust between us that to even try might be a lost cause.

"Why should I let you?" she asks, and I sigh. She's going to make this hard for me, I can tell.

"Stephanie, please." I talk to her simply, hoping to get my point across to her that I'm being absolutely serious now. She still doesn't trust me as she stands there in her doorway, not making any motion to let me in.

"How do you know I'm not alone?" she asks me, and my I frown. I don't like the idea that she might not be alone. She smirks at me and she knows that she's hit a chord. Here we go again. This might end up with her in tears, and I really don't want that right now. I just need her to listen.

"Stephanie, are you with someone right now?"

"I could be," she says, "You know, maybe I have a new boyfriend over here. You wouldn't know about that would you because we haven't talked in six months"

I look down, "If you have a boyfriend, only say the word."

She doesn't answer me and I look up at her and she has tears in her eyes. I don't know what they're from for a second, until I think back to what she had just said. Us not talking for six months, that's what she's referring to. It's the longest we've gone without speaking to each other. Not a phone call or anything has passed, and I can tell that she felt hurt about it. I should've known better than to shut her out like that, but at the time, it felt like the right thing to do. I regret it now.

But I had a good explanation at least. She had been getting closer to Edge. Edge would come around during his rehab and they'd talk and all this, and he'd call whenever I went over to her house. It got to the point where I wanted to her hurt her, because her being with Edge felt like it was hurting me.

She finally moves out of the way and I walk inside. I go to the living room and sit down on the couch I've sat on a million times. Fights have brewed on this couch, they've erupted, and they've died on this couch. She sits next to me and I look at her. She looks hurt. How come I didn't notice this before? I was too stupid I guess. I never did want to see anything because then I might actually have to admit that I care about Stephanie far more than I'm letting on.

"No Edge?" I ask bitterly as I look around. I don't know where it came from, but knowing that she was lording Trish over me, I figured I'd lord Edge over her.

She glares at me, "Shut up. Edge is long gone and you fucking know it."

"How the hell am I supposed to know it! I never know anything about you!"

"Who's fucking fault is that!" She's screaming now and gesturing wildly, "You're the one who doesn't call or anything for six fucking months! And then you run off with that blonde princess! And you have the audacity to come to MY house and then ask about something that as far as I'm concerned is none of your business!"

"Well, I'm fucking sorry Stephanie! What the hell was I supposed to do, just wait around for you!" This is not how I planned this to go, but I'm too hot to stop it right now. She's really angry now, I can see it in her face.

"No! I don't know," she calms down a little bit, but not much, "I wanted you to see me with Edge. You know I did."

I calm down as well and look at her coffee table, finding the magazines strewn about it far more fascinating than I did a few seconds before, "Yeah I know. I don't know why we keep doing this."

"Because we want to hurt each other," she tells me with a sad smile, "We always want to hurt each other."

"I went after Trish to get back at you for doing whatever you were doing with Edge," I tell her, and I'm being totally honest now, "I wanted to make you jealous."

"I wanted to make you jealous," she answers.

"So that's it huh? We're just out to make each other jealous. It's kind of sad don't you think?"

She gives a laugh, but its hollow and humorless, "Yeah, it is sad. But we've been doing it for years, and it's just the cycle of our lives."

"I hated that you were talking with Edge."

"I hated every second you were off with Trish."

Finally I think we're getting somewhere. Usually we never admit our games, but maybe we're too old for them. I'm in my thirties now and Stephanie isn't a child anymore. She isn't that twenty-two year old girl that I met in her father's office and ended up screwing in a hotel room later that same day.

"I never loved Trish," I say to her, hoping she'll get the underlying message.

"Really?"

"No, she was a distraction...from you, and nothing more."

"Nothing," she echoes, and I can hear the smile on her face.

"Don't you think it's time to stop all of this?"

She looks at me, "Stop what?"

"These games that we play with each other. It's been this way since the day we met Stephanie. Since the moment we first saw each other, we knew."

"Did we? I thought our first day together was just the beginning of the game."

"It was, but come on, it was...more."

I'm scared now. Stephanie could still be playing me and that's a scary feeling. I feel like I'm shaking from the anticipation of the words that might come out of my mouth. I can barely look at her. I've loved her for so long, I'm just a stubborn jackass. I don't believe in sappy things like love at first sight, but if what I had with Stephanie wasn't that, then I don't know what it was.

She looks at me in confusion, not actually acting like she's heard the words I said clearly. She stares at me, wondering if my defenses are really down, and I try to show her that they are, "More? I'm not getting you."

"Stephanie, you married Hunter. Why?"

"You know why," she answers, "Because I wanted to make you jealous. I always wanted to make you jealous."

"Why couldn't we just have a normal relationship?"

"Because you told me that your work was the most important thing in your life. How do you think that made me feel? I felt like some slut, and I wanted to hurt you." Her tone is different now, she's putting on her bitch face and scowling at me.

"Well...what if I was wrong? What if I loved you and I was just scared that you wouldn't love me back?"

There, I've sufficiently shocked her. Her mouth slacks a little and she stares at me for the longest moment. I nod slightly, letting her know wordlessly that I'm telling her the truth. She looks away from me and I try to make eye contact with her, but she's not letting me. I keep trying to turn her head towards me and she won't look at me, and for a moment I'm scared that she doesn't feel the same way. It would be just like her to turn me down just to spite me.

Finally I get her to look at me and she has the most honest look in her eyes and they're just looking at me. There's no hint of tears or sadness or anything. There's a shine in them I've never seen before, but I don't know what to make of them so I just stare at her face for a moment, trying to calm myself down after that confession. Hopefully I didn't scare her.

"All this time you've loved me?" she asks me, "You mean, all this time, YEARS, you've loved me?"

I nod, and just say, "Yeah."

"And we've done nothing but try to hurt each other and scare the other away and you've loved me the ENTIRE time?"

"That's right."

She just starts laughing, and keeps right on laughing as I look at her, puzzled by her reaction. She's holding her stomach now, she's laughing so hard. I look at her and finally understand. I start laughing too, and pretty soon we're both busting a gut as we sit there. We're so stupid, so completely stupid and the irony and stupidity of the situation is not lost on us.

"I can't believe this," she laughs, "I got MARRIED because I wanted to hurt you, and you LOVED me!"

"Do you know how hard it was for me to get over that," I tell her, "I wanted to rip you apart so badly, why do you think I started harassing you, I was trying to break up your marriage."

"Why do you think I tried to get you after you kissed me? I wanted you to hurt because you called me all those names," she said, shaking her head, "And Kurt, Hunter, Edge, every other guy has just been there to make you mad."

"Same with me," I tell her, and I'm so glad to finally get this off my back, "I just wanted you to see what you were missing."

"So basically we're both idiots then?"

"Pretty much."

"Well, I love you too idiot."

I'm not shocked by her confession. In fact, right now, it feels pretty right. This has just been a long time coming. It's been here since that first meeting. Yeah, we slept with each other after only knowing each other for a few hours, but that's just us, we're crazy. At least now I know that we're crazy about each other.

"So what do we do now?" she asks.

I think about it for a minute and then I look around. They always say that the best love stories end with an "I love you" and a kiss. So I leaned in to kiss her as it seemed the most appropriate thing to do. I pull away and I look at her and smile. She smiles too and then looks around. Nothing's changed, we're still sitting there. There are no fireworks in the sky, or a beautiful sunset in the background. It's the middle of the day and in fact it's cloudy. There will be no running in the rain to each other or getting locked in rooms. There's just going to be us, sitting there wondering what happens next.

But at least I have her now. Who knows, maybe somewhere there are fireworks, and there is a sunset and there is a couple kissing on the beach of some tropical isle. But you know what? None of that compares to just sitting there with her and as I look over at her, I just shrug my shoulders.

"I don't know."

And we're both fine with not knowing what comes next.

THE END


End file.
